In2Books ---- Epals

I have heard ePals before, but I have no idea about what is it. I never thought it was a global community where learners connect. What the most excited is this website is totally free! As the website introduced, the ePals Global Community™ is the world's largest network of K-12 classrooms, enabling students and teachers to safely connect and collaborate with classrooms in more than 200 countries and territories. Offered at no cost to classrooms, educators can access the community to find collaborative projects, join discussions in the community forums, and search thousands of classroom profiles to engage with others in authentic exchanges - all within in a safe, protected online environment. Isn’t it amazing? Now let’s exploring it!
First, watch a short presentation about EPals as communication Tool.

In this way, the ePals platform is a suite of logically, highly-interlaced communication and collaborative products and services that create focused interaction on specific issues with learners across the country or around the world: the ePalsLearningSpace; SchoolMail; the ePalsGlobalCommunity, and In2Books. The platform drives home founder Nina Zolt’s impassioned thesis that with proper design, social media and networking can, and will, play a profoundly transformative role in effective, authentic, and naturalistic globally based education. (cited from ePals: Effective Social Networking for Education )
As for me, I like to use In2Books in my future teaching. It brings the Common Core Standards to life with a safe motivating online curriculum that matches students with adult eMentors. Students get authentic experience purposefully reading books with eMentors and sharing ideas about important issues via online letters.

The reason I like In2Books are as follows.
1. Real learning, real dialogue, and real collaboration. In2Books, ePals' curriculum-based e-mentoring program for students in grades 3 through 5, matches students with adult pen pals, who read the same books, and exchange teacher-monitored, online letters about questions and issues raised by the text. The program provides standards-based professional development and professional learning communities and is facilitated by three resource-filled websites - one for students, another for pen pals, and a third for teachers.
2. The categories of the on-line books are fiction, biographies, social studies, traditional tales and science. The teacher chooses the topics, but children pick up their interested books, then teacher revises them. This can take ownership of children’s learning.
3. The book on-line is not like the paper book. It’s more colored and vivid. Children can see the outline and author’s information directly and can do the puzzles and interesting quits. It can arouse students interesting, but not just read.
4. In the Interbook writing center, penpals will find the great tools. It can provoke questions, key vocabulary and checklist and example letter. It'll help them to better comprehense the book and improve their writing skills.
5. The information is free and open to share between teachers and penpals. It's like both teacher and students are learned in this website.
In brief, it's a really open shared teahing platform with plenty resources, tools and information.

Animoto---A Potential Teaching Tool

What's Animoto? It's website for you to create stunning video slideshows.
How to use it? Turn your photos and music into stunning video slideshows. You provide the photos, you pick the song, and Animoto will add the magic.

 Make your own slideshow with music at Animoto.

I used to use similar tools for creating my electronics photo album. But this one is more easier and convenient. There are three advantages. First, the speed of Animoto is quick. Second, we can directly choose the music instead of uploading the one, and the website already offers enough choose. Third, it can be shared, download and posted.
When I first use it, I just think it saves me lots of  time and I get fun from making it. Meanwhile, I find it's a potential teaching tool. Nowadays, students learn English, especially in China, because they have to, but not for their on sake. What we must do is to change this embarrassed situation. How to stir the students' interesting become the primary task.
As for me, I'll let the students to use this tools in two ways in my future teaching.
On the one hand, we all know that nowadays students like to post their photos on the web to the public. I'll change the way they usually do, instead, let them to create Animoto with brief introduction and text in English. Meanwhile, leaving commands to other classmates. It's not a required work,but just let them to form a habit of noting everyday life in English.
On the other hand, I'll combined it with blog. Blog should not just be words and pictures. We should make more vivid and attractive. Everyone likes travel, no matter outside or on the Internet. Students should create their own travel Animoto and write diaries every week.
Don't wait, just give it a try — it's fast, free and shockingly easy.

How to use Bookr to teach volcabularies?

Do you know what is Bookr? Is it, an on-line book store or a library? All wrong, it's like an empty magazine, and you can add imagines and notes on it, or it's like an Electronics Photo Album that you can attach your photos and write feeling about that. Most of the people use it to record his or her life and journey, have you ever thought that we can use it in our ESL class? When I first know about this amazing om-line tool, there are many thoughts jump into my mind about my future teaching, like I can let the students to change their way of writing diaries; or for the beginners, I can let them to make simple stories with pictures and simple sentences.; Furthermore, I can use this tools to teach students vocabularies, and this is the one I want to emphasize and illustrate today.
After I came to America, I found I was lack of everyday English words. It's really frustrated when I walk into a supermarket and there are hundreds and thousands of products I cannot call their names. It's not just me, but most of the L2 students who are studying abroad. So I have three objectives to achieve of using Bookr. 1. Let the students have fun; 2, Let the students to learn the words in an easy and obvious way; 3. Let the students to use it for better study and enjoy others learning sharing too.
There is a Bookr below. It's a simple example I made and let's see. How can we learn from it?


This is a Bookr which introduces fresh fruits to the students with the pictures and words. When students learn words in this way is more fun than read the words with its meanings on the books. And I don't need to translate the target language to their mother-tone, otherwise. They can know the meaning by watching the pictures. Every student can make his or her own vocabulary Bookr and share with each other by posted it on the blog. So it's really convenient, right?

Digital Storytelling

What is digital storytelling?
From Wikipedia, it refers to a short form of digital film-making that allows everyday people to share aspects of their lives story. According to the seven things, you should know about... digital storytelling, it says digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component.
It is a relatively new term which describes the new practice of ordinary people who use digital tools to tell their 'story'. Digital stories often present in compelling and emotionally engaging formats. It can also cover a range of digital narratives (web-based stories, interactive stories, hypertexts, and narrative computer games); It sometimes used to refer to film-making in general, and as of late. It has been used to describe advertising and promotion efforts by commercial and non-profit enterprises.

One can define digital storytelling as the process by which diverse peoples shares their lives story and creative imaginings with others. This newer form of storytelling emerged with the advent of accessible media production techniques, hardware and software, including but not limited to digital cameras, digital voice recorders, iMovie, Movie Maker and Final Cut Express. These new technologies allow individuals to share their stories over the Internet on YouTube, Vimeo, compact discs, podcasts, and other electronic distribution systems.(Wikipedia)

How about the educational use of digital storytelling?
Digital Storytelling is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories. In the contrast of traditional storytelling, the topics that are used in Digital Storytelling range from personal tales to the recounting of historical events, from exploring life in one's own community to the search for life in other corners of the universe, and literally, everything in between.

In my future teaching, I want to use digital storytelling to let students record their dairies. They can upload their photos and videos with explanation and notes. With the rapid development of technology, the advent of accessible media production techniques emerged. Students can now use hardware and software, including but not limited to digital cameras, digital voice recorders, Move Make and Final Cut Express. These new technologies allow students to share their stories over the Internet on Youtobe, podcasts, and other electronic distribution systems. Meanwhile, it's worldspread, so students' own stories will open to the world. If it's possible, your storytelling may attract a lot of people and they'll give commands to you. In this process, students acquire self-satisfied. The most important thing is, she or he will have initiative and persistence to learn the language.